Life and Island Times July 14 2016 – Time To Ramble On

This one is from early 2012.

————————————–

Marlow’s condo dorm running mates had all turned sixty three. They were just three hundred days younger than that Beatles song “When I’m 64” which posed the age old question of “Will you still love me?” One of his crazy neighbors, J, dropped by his pad early one morning. Marlow had spied her earlier outside surreptitiously reorganizing boxed up household goods in the back of her new mini SUV.

Like many of their chats during the past eight years, it roamed over hill and over dale. Its sprawl included life’s B. I. G. issues of sickness, mortality, and loss; her wished-for knight on a white horse and neighbor, Sandman; and her children before finally arriving at her visit’s primary reason — her plans for that spring and summer.

It was not a surprise when she announced that she would leave the island for good in less than five days. Marlow was stunned to her hear say she was utterly unsure where she would head after exiting the Keys 126 miles of no-turn US 1’s pock marked asphalt other than generally north for a spell. Unnoticed autumn leaves had been falling all around her for more than half a decade before she figured out that it was time to be on her way.

She exhibited lots of disquiet about her choice. This female Fagin repeatedly reviewed the situation in front of Marlow, thinking that some last minute person or thing would miraculously intervene to change her course and drop her anchor overboard in their condo’s protected salt water bight.

Marlow assured her than something would light up or appear along her way.

The next Tuesday would mark six years plus two weeks since she had lost her husband of thirty six years to cancer. She had chased Sandman for five years. It had gotten so messed up that Sandman had gone to great lengths to solitarize himself in the his own condo while generously allowing her to stay rent-free in his extra bedroom for eight months after the Association took possession of J’s condo for a year’s worth of unpaid monthly fees and special assessments.

Since her husband’s death and in spite of her friends’ advice, she had pissed away close to half a million dollars in real estate equity. She had also squandered well over $350,000 from her farm’s sale after paying for her husband’s care and burial. It all went to la vida loca. Trips, clothes, cosmetic dentistry, eye lifts, fad diets, weird herbal and tincture treatments, quack medical devices and exercise regimens — all to catch something that was and remained uncatchable – Sandman. Loopily, she was still thankful for her pleasant stay.

While they talked, it briefly rained outside; yet, she would not acknowledge her palpable pain. She seemed to shrink in front of Marlow as she sat there so tired. Her visage alternated from teary to steely, giving Marlow the chills.

Wanting to change the conversation’s downward arc, he told her of another gentleman’s decided interest in her. A financially and emotionally solid, funny, gentle, secure in his own skin, good looking 60 something dude had chatted her up while they drank red zinfandel on the porch of Vinos, a Duval Street wine bar, on Saturday night.

She admitted that she had seen his signals but remained even now captured by her Sandman obsession. That was Marlow’s word, since her one and only word for Sandman was love.

Marlow told her that there were scads of worthier dudes on her road. She was unfazed by this truth, brushing it off her like emotional lint.

Outside of one other couple and Sandman, she had told no one else on the island of her plans. She had even withheld this information from her island dwelling and estranged daughter B and her granddaughter K. She said she planned tell them on Mother’s Day, if she spent it with them. If that did not work out, then she planned to tell them the night before she left. Holy f*ck!, Marlow thought.

After some pleading from Marlow, she agreed to let a few of them toast a few last stemfuls of Napa juice to our health, our memories together and her coming journey over a fondue dinner at Michael’s before she started her wander.

This petite blonde from the small eastern Washington farm town of Wilbur did not know it, but it was her time to sing her song, while travelling around the world. She would find a man on her way. She had been in this crazy way for six long years. Perhaps she would find a bluebird or the king of her dreams. For her, it was time to ramble on.

Scenes from Marlow’s summer 2008 motorcycle ramble: eastern Washington (r), northern Vermont (l) © 2016 FMIS

Copyright © 2016 From My Isle Seat